Studies Point to Big Drop in Covid-19 Death Rates

Post by petschge » Wed, Oct 21, 2020, 2:17 PM UTC

astrophysician wrote: post #18

OJFord wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer the original - it tells me that 18% of all hospitalised patients are alive today where they would not have been before. Yours tells me 2/3 of them that were dying are no longer, but it puts me on edge like I might be being baited into clicking - a 2/3 drop isn't necessarily impressive, like in normal times if 0.5% of ED patients are dying, dropping by a factor of three might just be the difference between a…

hmm..I see your point but I'm not sure I agree, saying 2/3 of people that otherwise would have died are no longer is tailored to the problem. E.g. if mortality rate from all covid infections went from 0.1% -> 0.001%, thats incredibly impressive and important since the mortality is now 1% of what it was, meaning 99% of deaths are being avoided but "the mortality rate went down by 0.099%" sounds small and insignificant…

Post by chrisco255 » Wed, Oct 21, 2020, 2:19 PM UTC

OJFord wrote: post #10

dnautics wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! > mortality has dropped among hospitalized patients by 18 percentage points since the pandemic began. Patients in the study had a 25.6% chance of dying at the start of the pandemic; they now have a 7.6% chance. It's strange to phraseit like that; I would have phrased it as "mortality has dropped by a factor of 3"

I prefer the original - it tells me that 18% of all hospitalised patients are alive today where they would not have been before. Yours tells me 2/3 of them that were dying are no longer, but it puts me on edge like I might be being baited into clicking - a 2/3 drop isn't necessarily impressive, like in normal times if 0.5% of ED patients are dying, dropping by a factor of three might just be the difference between a…

Post by chrisco255 » Wed, Oct 21, 2020, 2:22 PM UTC

mrkstu wrote: post #13

xpe wrote: post #2

Summary: > Studying changes in death rate is tricky because although the overall U.S. death rate for COVID-19 seems to be dropping, the drop coincides with a change in whom the disease is sickening. > So have death rates dropped because of improvements in treatments? Or is it because of the change in who's getting sick? > To find out, Horwitz and her colleagues looked at more than 5,000 hospitalizations in the NYU La…

So the remaining question is, has the virus changed (mutated) to be less deadly, or have masks lessened the viral load on initial infection enough to give the immune system a better chance of fighting it off, or have treatments become that much more effective? Or a combination of the above?

Post by chrisco255 » Wed, Oct 21, 2020, 2:24 PM UTC

mikewarot wrote: post #14

I'm very glad fewer people are dying, but Most people didn't die with Polio... they were somehow crippled for life... I suspect the same is true with Covid-19. We need to eliminate it, not manage it.

Post by Shivetya » Wed, Oct 21, 2020, 2:28 PM UTC

mmastrac wrote: post #15

> Horwitz believes that mask-wearing may be helping by reducing the initial dose of virus a person receives, thereby lessening the overall severity of illness for many patients. Now if only we could drill this lesson into everyone's head.